


Your Trek Neighbors

by lauawill



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-07
Updated: 2012-01-07
Packaged: 2017-10-29 03:54:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/315521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lauawill/pseuds/lauawill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James T. Kirk is like your dad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Trek Neighbors

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally published in Now Voyager, the newsletter of Kate Mulgrew's fan club.

James T. Kirk is like your dad.

When you were both younger and more impressionable, you thought he was great. He was the most important man in your life -- you looked up to him as an ideal, a goal. He was your hero.

Now... Well, you're both older now, and at least you're wiser. He's just fatter. You find him a little embarrassing. You're afraid he'll show up at your beach party wearing Bermuda shorts and black socks and sandals. Or he might ask someone to pull his finger. You never know what he might say or do -- not because he's unpredictable, but because he's a little nuts, because he always has to be the center of attention. But you've got to love him, because he's your Dad. Spock is your much cooler uncle -- the one you _wish_ were really your father. In moments of rage and spite, you think he might actually _be_ your father, but everyone's been trying to keep it from you your whole life. McCoy is your other uncle, the one who was always more interested in your love life than your schoolwork, and Scotty is your parents' handy friend who gets drunk at their parties.

Jean-Luc is your second cousin, twice removed. He was always the one with the talent -- at family gatherings, your aunt and uncle raved incessantly about his latest essay, or the marathon he won last month, or the play he just directed. Sometimes you wish he were more closely related to you. Sometimes you wish he'd run into a gravitational anomaly and fall off the planet. Will and Geordi and Bev and Deanna are the kids you went to camp with. You only saw them for a couple of weeks every year, so you always tried to make the best of those days -- water gun fights, canoe races, midnight missions to the mess hall. You grew up together, and later, you all became camp counselors together. You miss them sometimes. Because Will finally asked Deanna out and they settled down somewhere, and that big guy everyone always called Worf found a new set of friends, and Geordi -- well, Geordi was always too smart for his own good. Not too lucky with women. And he started spending way too much time with that Soong guy with the bad hair and the sallow complexion. Always claimed he was from France, but you never quite believed him.

Now you're all grown up, got a family of your own, husband, kids. Got a nice house out in the 'burbs. Interesting neighbors. Like the folks across the street. There's Ben, who coaches your kid's baseball team. He seems like a nice enough guy, a widower with a son of his own. He's always polite to you, he's good to the kids, he even came over to mow your lawn that weekend when your husband threw his back out bowling. But you just can't get a handle on him. And he seems to have a whole slew of people living in his house -- couple of gorgeous foreign women named Kira and Jadzia, for one thing, and you're not quite sure how all the relationships work out. There's this guy Julian, though now he wants to be called "Alexander." He doesn't look like an Alexander at all, but he's insisting on it. He and Kira have been hanging out together a lot lately. She's very definitely pregnant, and you wonder if maybe... But she's saying the baby isn't hers, she's actually carrying it as a surrogate for Miles and Keiko, the couple who run the garage down the block. You thought they already had a daughter, a little angel with big brown eyes. You try not to pry, try not to gossip about them behind their backs. But you wonder.

There are a few shops in your neighborhood, but the one you really worry about belongs to Quark. You find Quark a little, well, annoying. His establishment isn't exactly family friendly; you're pretty sure there's gambling going on there, maybe even some procurement of flesh. And the owner -- quite a businessman. He's the kind of guy who would get into a price war with the kid running the corner lemonade stand. Might put him out of business, too -- even when the kid is his own nephew. He's corrupt, that's certain, but you feel all right about it because that nice policeman, Officer Odo, is keeping an eye on him.

Then there's Kathryn. She and her family moved in next door a couple of years ago. The two of you used to have coffee together afternoons after the kids were off to school and she was home from work, but you've been meeting less and less often. You feel a kind of insane competition with her; her house is immaculate, her yard is gorgeous, her nails are always freshly painted and her hair is always perfect. Her husband, Tuvok, is the three-piece-suit type. Exotically foreign, very grim, drives an Acura Legend, never smiles. Their kids are just too much. Harry plays first chair clarinet in the youth symphony, Belle has won the science fair two years in a row, and Tommy is the captain of the soccer team. Might be Homecoming King, too, if that black eye of his clears up.

Kathryn's a scientific genius of some sort, got nominated for big prizes years back, and now she's got a whole staff of people who work for her. There's Neelix, the funny little cook. Sometimes you can smell his noxious concoctions through the open window, and you begin to understand how Kathryn stays so trim. The housekeeper/nanny, Kes, is his wife. You thought at first she was his daughter -- she's less than half his age, for pete's sake -- but you recently witnessed an event on the pool deck that convinced you to the contrary. Kathryn's doctor even makes house calls --though whether it's to see Kathryn or Kes, you're not sure. It makes you a little sick.

Then there's the groundskeeper. Big guy, graying hair, incredible smile. He's good-looking in a silly, playful kind of way. Tuvok doesn't like him much; the two rarely speak, and when they do, they argue. "Yes, ma'am," is about all you ever hear come out of his mouth. Kathryn spends a lot of time with him, and he follows her around. She was out sunbathing once...

You didn't mean to watch, but the curtains were open and there they were. It was a hot day, mercilessly humid, and she had him out digging up weeds while she lounged in the sun, her hair drawn up in a neat bun, a colorful cloth wrapped around her waist. He was covered with dirt and sweat, the sun beating down on his bare skin. You were watching them, watching Kathryn watch beads of sweat trickle down his back, when she got up, put her hand on his shoulder, and gave him a glass of lemonade. He looked up at her with those adoring brown eyes. Squinted a little until she moved to block the sun for him. He sat there at her feet in the dirt, drinking down the lemonade and basking in her shade, unabashedly devouring her with his eyes. She leaned down and whispered something in his ear, her clean white hand still resting on his brown shoulder, her manicured nails pressing into his flesh. "Yes, ma'am," you heard him say, and he followed her around the back of the garden shed where you couldn't see them anymore. Couldn't hear them, either, because of the birds and the bees and the lawn sprinklers.

Minutes later, there was a pair of loud splashes from the pool. You looked, but they were out of sight in the deep end. But you could see a pile of clothes on the deck -- his work boots and trousers, her sun hat and skirt. A trickle of sweat ran down your throat while you watched, waiting for them to swim into sight. You licked your lips and tasted salt, thought about sneaking into the yard and stealing the pitcher of lemonade from her deck. From there you'd be able to see them, they'd never notice you behind that shrubbery, the lemonade would taste so cool and you were so hot, and it was hours before Tuvok would get home...

But the dog barked and the oven timer shrieked and the kids came tearing through the back door. He swam into sight with long, lazy strokes, while she bobbed after him, her long hair floating on the surface of the water, spread out like a fan. He reached for her; you sighed and turned away from the window, wiping sweat from your forehead, tucking damp locks behind your ears, still thinking of cool water and sweet lemonade.

The kids want snacks. You hustle them into the kitchen with one last, longing look out the window. You dig out plates and cups, milk and cookies, and remind the kids that Grandpa will be coming over for dinner. Their faces fall, they whine and complain. The little one looks up at you with fear in his eyes.

"He's not gonna make me pull his finger, is he?"


End file.
